Fragile Glass
by rosaxx50
Summary: Viewing love as a tool to be used doesn't make one immune. Quen/Berenene, for Goldenlake's Canon Week.


He presents her with a globe.

A glass globe, like the baubles that light her fishermen's boats as they row back laden with the day's catch, but so fine and delicate it is invisible in any light less than the sun at its zenith. Otherwise, it would look as though she held lightning right against her skin, rather than merely the blown glass sphere, inside which delicate laceworks burst and sizzle. It is pretty, to be certain, but it is a trinket, and the finest craftsmen on the continent flood to her court with similar offerings.

He has fallen short of her expectations so many times that she is surprised at the prick of disappointment, tugging down the corners of her mouth.

"That is not the gift," he amends when he sees her face, voice cultured, and cautious.

She sets the globe on the dresser in front of her, then clasps her hands. A subtle nod at the mistress of her wardrobe - who has finally lost the impression of watching, perpetually, the roads to Emelan - and they are alone. She rises from her richly carved chair. "You have a strange way of marking not-gifts, then."

Still careful, her mage admits, "I wasn't sure you'd see me, if it weren't to demand an explanation."

She would ask him why he'd expected that, rather than a simple banishment to show her displeasure at the gift, but that would show uncertainty. She could wait for his explanation, but he would then think he'd successfully influenced her. Instead: "Why on earth would I refuse you permission to speak to me?"

"Because not only do you like toying with other people," he answers, coming to stand closer to her, "but you're good at it." There is something nonchalant about his shrug, about the face she found so attractive that for a time he was her favorite; there is also something feigned about his nonchalance. "And you like being good at it, too."

"I hardly ever toyed with you."

His laugh tells her that he interprets this as a joke: an easy laugh that says, with typical wordless suggestion, that he does not hold it against her. She smiles, waiting until he finishes, and then lets him wait. And wait. And wait until even his court-forged smile is strained about the edges, easy laughter fading into wary suspicion that he tries to hide. Then, only then, does she incline her head - half-bound hair tumbling in rich waves down her back, and he does not even attempt to look like he isn't watching. "I hope your explanation is a good one."

"For letting that idiot that kidnapped your cousin get what he deserved?" he says, hands resting tentatively on her shoulders. He relaxes, minutely, when she does not protest, and his next words are more confident. "I think you know why I did that."

She lets him believe he is safe, for a little while longer. The circles he rubs against her back, the firmness of his touch, are familiar sensations, and she will not feel them again. "That is not the explanation I require."

"What is it that you... require?" he asks, hands loosening.

They hands slip off her shoulders entirely as she turns around, slowly, until they are face to face. Her voice is even. Calm. "Did you think that you would become my favorite again, if your competition left?"

He pales.

He pales and actually taking an involuntary step back before regaining enough control to stop, but the fist he forms by his side still trembles. It's an admirable recovery, really; she appreciates it now that her initial rage has dissipated and left that awful disappointment in its place. He has disappointed her so very many times.

The mage doesn't stumble over his justification, his excuse. "He wouldn't have stayed. He would have tried his hardest to leave, anyway."

Her eyes narrow.

"The people he loved were in Emelan," he persists, reaching for her. He checks himself hastily, but adds, "And that love was reason enough."

"His sisters were here," she says. "But you dealt with that too, didn't you? Or did you honestly think yourself equal to four powerful, infuriated mages?" Without waiting for his reply, she turns away; the answer is written on his face, in the ink of arrogance shaken, but not destroyed. "I would have tolerated your court games if it did nothing more than keep him out of my bed. I will not tolerate a challenge to my authority."

"I wasn't trying to."

"My cousin was under my protection." She lets that sink in. "You may leave."

If she were five years younger, he would not have been able to leave with all his body parts intact, as an example to others if nothing else. If, in fact, it had been a week ago, with news of her cousin's departure newly received, he might have been in danger too. But this is not five years ago; it has been a long time since she weighed him on the merit of his magic and looks alone; and few enough know about his role that more severe punishment could make gossip spread like wildfire.

"Where did you get the globe, Quen?" she says. She is not nearly ruthless enough any longer - a fault.

Quen's footsteps stop. His voice is quiet. "I traded for it with the head of Kugisko's Goldsmith's Guild. The globe for a bit of magic for his wife. That was part of the gift, empress."

"Good," she tells him. Her next words are not a suggestion; she is too shrewd to make the mistake of diminishing her resources. "Go back there and see them. Not for a visit. One of the older daughters is a mage, and still unmarried."

It occurs to her that she wants to see his expression, in the stunned silence before his footsteps resume; it also occurs to her that she does not want him to see hers.

"Yes, your Majesty."

Besides, she already knows what she would find on his face, in the space between resentment and misery. She has known since before he first shared her bed years ago, as a newly accredited prodigy-mage, and she saw it there when he walked into the room - intermingled with ambition, but there nonetheless.

Alone, in the minute before her servants return, her gaze falls again the glass globe on the dresser top. Silk rustles as she touches it, lightly, and lifts it for further inspection. It is unexceptional among the offerings from the Glassmakers' Guild, and fragile enough that the weight of her gold crown and jewelry, say, would crush it, but the globe itself is pretty.

No, she is not nearly ruthless enough, she thinks, because she wants to keep it.


End file.
